Dr. Tina Freiburger is the Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. As the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Interim Provost, Dr. Freiburger is charged with the administration of all academic units, including the schools and colleges and provides leadership for all faculty and staff in ensuring excellence in the university’s mission to advance student success, research and community engagement.
Dr. Freiburger brings significant academic administrative experience to this position, including six years as a dean at UWM in multiple roles: Dean of the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, Interim Dean of the School of Education and the School of Information Studies, and, as of 2023, as the founding Dean of the College of Community Engagement & Professions, which brought together the three schools noted above. In her previous roles, Dr. Freiburger has overseen the academic enterprise, launched new online degree programs, managed personnel and budgets, grown research expenditures, and guided units through institutional changes. She achieved success through approaches focused on annual goals aligned with the 2030 Action Plan, student-centeredness, faculty and staff engagement, and data-informed decision-making.
Dr. Freiburger’s primary research areas include decision-making in adult and juvenile courts, program evaluation, and the intersection of mental health and substance use with the criminal justice system. She has partnered with several local criminal justice agencies for studies and program evaluations on topics including juvenile offending, improving the identification of the mental health needs of youth in our community, the effectiveness of work programs for probationers and parolees, and disparities in prosecutorial and judicial decision-making.
Dr. Freiburger holds a BA in Criminal Justice/Political Science from the University of Wisconsin Platteville, an MA in Criminal Justice/Criminology from Sam Houston State University and a PhD in Criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.